Hello, , from NHERI and Dr. Ray.
This is the first study of its kind. And the findings are provocative.
Purpose
The purpose of this study was
to explore the academic achievement of Black homeschool students in Grades 4 to 8 as it relates to various demographic features of the students and their families. Also, the study was designed to better understand these African American parents’ motivations for homeschooling. This study is meant to be the first of its type for approaching these two aspects of this group of homeschoolers’ lives.
Methods
This is a cross-sectional, explanatory nonexperimental study. The design controlled for limited background independent
variables for the homeschool and public-school students in a way that very few studies have ever accomplished.
The homeschool students were engaged private home-based education for 50 percent or more of his or her Kindergarten through current grade-level years. Black, when referring to the homeschool students in this study, is defined as the parent having identified the child as “Black (or African American)” and both of the child’s
parents were identified as “Black (or African American)” regarding race/ethnicity. About 40 percent of the homeschool students were boys, and 60 percent girls. Their academic achievement was measured using the well-recognized, nationally normed, standardized academic achievement test called the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS).
It is important to note that this study is not designed to compare Black homeschool
students’ achievement to all homeschool students’ achievement in preceding studies. Also, it is not known whether this sample is representative of all U.S. Black homeschool families, and therefore one should be cautious regarding generalizations. Further, it is not an experimental study that is designed, in and of itself, to establish cause-and-effect.
Findings
Reasons for Homeschooling
The six reasons most commonly selected for homeschooling by these Black parents were
- (a) the parents “prefer to teach the child at home so that you [parent] can provide religious or moral instruction” (chosen by 96.3% of parents),
- (b) “for the parents to transmit values, beliefs, and worldview to
the child” (95.1%),
- (c) “develop stronger family relationships between children and parents and among brothers and sisters” (87.7%),
- (d) “to customize or individualize the education of each child” (80.2%),
- (e) “accomplish more academically than in conventional schools” (76.5%), and
- (f) “want to provide religious or moral
instruction different from that taught in public schools” (76.5%).
Parents were also asked to list “the three main reasons, from [the] previous [list], for homeschooling this child.” The five reasons most often chosen were
- (a) “prefer to teach the child at home so that you can provide religious or moral instruction” (selected as one of the “three main reasons” by 46.9% of
parents),
- (b) “accomplish more academically than in conventional schools” (38.3%),
- (c) “for the parents to transmit values, beliefs, and worldview to the child” (34.6%),
- (d) “to customize or individualize the education of each child” (28.4%), and
- (e) “want to provide religious or moral instruction different from that
taught in public schools” (27.2%). The five most frequently cited important
Academic achievement
These Black homeschool students achievement test scores were quite high, all things considered. They scored at or above the 50th percentile in reading (68th), language (56th), math (50th), and core (i.e., a
combination of reading, language, and math; 58th) subtests. By definition, the 50th percentile is the mean for all students (or all ethnicities/races) nationwide in institutional schools.
Comparing Black homeschool students to Black public school students yields notable findings. While controlling for gender of student and family socioeconomic status, being homeschooled had an effect size of about 42 percentile points higher
(an effect size or change in z-score of 1.13) than if public schooled. For language scores, being homeschooled had an effect size of about 26 percentile points higher than if public schooled (i.e., a change in z-score.65). and for math, being homeschooled had an effect size of about 23 percentile points higher than if public schooled (z-score of .60).
Conclusions
Motives for homeschooling
These parents’ reasons for homeschooling are similar to those of homeschool parents at large in the United States. In addition, some of them mentioned race/ethnicity-related issues as part of their many reasons for homeschooling. However, findings in this study offer no solid evidence that this group of Black homeschoolers chose home-based education primarily to promote anything like Afrocentrism or its thinking to their children, even though some researchers have
found more focus on this in their qualitative studies of Black homeschool parents.
Academic achievement
The Black homeschool students’ relatively high achievement, compared to Black public school students, is consistent with decades of research on homeschooling in general (Murphy, 2012; Ray, 2013). Some people will not be surprised about this
since home-based education, by nature, generally involves pedagogical practices and an educational ecology that are conducive to improving achievement (Murphy, 2012; Ray, 1997, 2000, 2005, 2013).
For example, Murphy (2012) advanced a theory of action—to understand and explain the generally high academic achievement by home-educated students—that includes what he called the three planks of parental involvement (i.e., much),
instructional program (e.g., considerable flexibility, extensive two-way dialogue between adults and children), and learning environment (e.g., safe and orderly, less negative peer culture) that are advantageous compared to public and private
institutional school settings.
The Black home-educated students in this study performed as well or better than the national average of public school
students of all races/ethnicities, while Black students in public schools score, in general, far below average. Also, the scores of these Black homeschool students were far above the scores of the Black public school norm students in this study.
In fact, analysis revealed that having been home educated was a consistent, significant predictor of higher achievement while controlling for gender of student and the socioeconomic
status of the student’s family. Being homeschooled was associated with a positive effect size of roughly 42 percentile points in reading, 26 percentile points in language, and 23 percentile points in math.
One way to look at these findings is that even if the Black homeschool students’ scores had been just a bit above the national average of all students, that would have been a very big story. Black children with teachers (their
parents) who are not government-certified teachers and not using $11,000 of tax dollars per year scoring not only above Black public school students but as well as all students? That kind of news should catch the attention of a lot of people.
In reflecting on the value of predictive power in research, Wieman (2014, p. 13) put forward the following: “In cutting-edge research in the hard sciences, there are always things that one wants
to know or measure or control that one cannot, just as there are in education research.” I have tried to control some of the most significant variables in this study and I have tried to heed Wieman’s warning that “it is possible to be too careful” (p. 13). I think it is likely that this study provides findings “that are reproducible and have adequate predictive power to advance the field” (Wieman, p. 14) of research on homeschooling in general, and Black parents home educating their children in
particular.
--Brian D. Ray, Ph.D.
National Home Education Research Institute
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References
Murphy, Joseph. (2012). Homeschooling in America: Capturing and assessing the movement. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, a Sage Company.
Ray, Brian D. (1997). Strengths of their own—Home schoolers across America: Academic achievement, family characteristics, and longitudinal traits. Salem, OR: National Home Education Research Institute.
Ray,
Brian D. (2000). Home schooling: The ameliorator of negative influences on learning? Peabody Journal of Education, 75(1 & 2), 71–106.
Ray, Brian D. (2005). A homeschool research story. In B. S. Cooper (Ed.), Home schooling in full view: A reader (pp. 1–19). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.
Ray, Brian D. (2013). Homeschooling associated
with beneficial learner and societal outcomes but educators do not promote it. Peabody Journal of Education, 88(3), 324–341.
Wieman, Carl E. (2014). The similarities between research in education and research in the hard sciences. Educational Researcher, 43(1), 12–14.
Endnotes:
[1] Every person, whether a researcher, journalist, academic, policymaker, judge, carpenter, or nurse, has a worldview or weltanschauung. Examples of worldviews are atheism, Buddhism,
Christianity/scripturalism, communitarianism, critical theory, Islam, metaphysical naturalism, Mormonism, queer theory, Roman Catholicism, scientism, socialism, and statism. 